Claire Baylis was a lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington for 13 years before she wrote her debut novel.
Claire Baylis was a lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington for 13 years before she wrote her debut novel.
A retired scientist, a forestry worker who volunteers to fight fires overseas, a young swimmer with Olympic ambitions and a hospitality worker juggling shiftwork while getting paid under the table.
These are four of the characters serving on the fictional jury in Claire Baylis’ debut novel, Dice.
Dice is a Rotorua-set courtroom drama with a twist. It’s told through the eyes of 12 jurors who need to decide whether four teenage boys are guilty of sexual offences involving a game based on the toss of a dice.
Baylis said her jury represented “a diverse cross-section of society” but had one thing in common.
“You will feel like you know them,” Baylis told the Rotorua Daily Post.
Baylis moved to Rotorua with her family in 2004, thinking they were only going to stay for a couple of years.
“We really loved it and so we decided that this was where we wanted to bring up our children.
“I think I wanted to celebrate that side of Rotorua but I was also very aware of the hugely disparate socio-economic groups here. There is such a divide in terms of people’s wealth. There is a difference.”
Dice, the courtroom drama and debut novel by Rotorua's Claire Baylis, hit bookstores this month. Photo / Kate Tokeley
Those differences, Baylis said, made her characters interesting.
“What’s interesting about a jury is that you are bumping against people with different backgrounds and you are asked to make a high-stakes decision with those people. Eyes get opened during that process.”
According to Baylis, Dice was a novel about 50 years in the making.
“I’ve been wanting to write a book since I was 6,” Baylis said.
But life just kept getting in Baylis’ way. She worked as a law academic and lecturer at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University for 12 years before moving to Rotorua, where she worked as an interviewer and researcher for a transtasman jury study.
“I had three children. I was doing legal research. I was very involved in the local swim club.”
Opening the box containing 12 copies of her book, published by Allen and Unwin, at home with her son felt “unbelievable”, Baylis said.
Baylis’ fascination with the effect of a trial on the lives of jurors began when she attended the Nia Glassie murder trial in 2008. The court heard how the toddler was subjected to days of brutal abuse by her mother’s then-partner and his brother. The mother was found guilty of manslaughter and the two men guilty of murder.
“In the course of that, I was thinking of how hard it must be for the jurors to put their lives on hold and hear this difficult evidence.”
Author Claire Baylis lives in Rotorua. She wrote Dice as part of a PhD in creative writing. Photo / Kate Tokeley
Then in 2016, Baylis had the idea of telling the story of a trial from the perspective of the jurors. She applied for a PhD in creative writing so that she could focus on the project.
“From my research, I started to see that the sexual assault trials were really hard for juries. They had some assumptions and misconceptions about sexual assault which were playing into their discussions.”
In Dice, each of the jurors has a turn at narration, giving readers an insight into how the trial is affecting their life and how their experience and background affect their perception of the trial.
“As I was writing the novel I tried to get in the heads of each different juror and to really try to see the whole court process from their perspective.”
Baylis said the novel’s ending snuck up on her. She hopes it will sneak up on readers as well.
“I wasn’t expecting it to end like that. I tried to write a gripping story that keeps you going.”
And if readers like Dice, Baylis said she’s got more in store.
“Yes, I have a whole draft for my next book already. I need to go back through it again. The end part isn’t working yet. But yes, readers can expect more from me.”
Baylis’ PhD supervisor and author of 13 books Damien Wilkins said Dice was about 12 people trying to convert the mess of the world into a coherent narrative.
“I don’t think there’s ever been fiction which takes us so close to the jury experience,” Wilkins said.
“The crime procedural is burst open by Claire’s lovely detailing of different worlds: the world of a childcare centre, the world of a widowed retiree, the world of a failing businessman, the world of competitive swimming. Dice is both claustrophobic and wide open.”
